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America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

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Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#361

Post by nonethewiser »

vFunct wrote: post #22
nonethewiser wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But aren't China's learning outcomes higher in calculus, physics, etc? Also the US is already the 2nd largest manufacturer in the world.

There's a lot more to our education than that. Additionally, our REAL competitive advantage are our universities. We have the best universities in the world, by far, and that's what drives our economy over all others as we create the most valuable intellectual property.

That doesnt really address how the leading manufacturer is also leading in the metrics you said are opposed to leading in manufacturing.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#362

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

pjc50 wrote: post #338
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that is so frustrating to me, and not just with regards to tariffs. It's that I see the extremes being so laughably bad (though not necessarily equally - I'm not "both sides"-ing this), and more ludicrously bad is that I've seen positions that don't follow these extremes as being derided now as "centrism". E.g. before the administration's attack on higher education, I do believe a lot of elite univer…

> making logical arguments in this environment feels almost pointless. Unfortunately this is the culmination of social media as a controversy machine, that promotes the worst arguments. > ideological purity tests like required DEI statements Example? There's a controversy industry that cherry picks the worst examples of student-politics excess in these regards and then carefully conflates it with university policy. A…

> Example?

I literally linked an article in my comment that had an overview, but here is a more specific one that addresses diversity statements in particular:

https://reason.com/2022/09/30/mandated-diversity-statement-d...

> As well as the sad truth that as soon as you take away "DEI" requirements the segregationists come back and purge the library, delete all the black Medal of Honor recipients from the website, etc.

This is literally my exact point. There absolutely should be a rational place that denounces both these diversity statement ideological requirements and the egregious memory-holing that the current administration is implementing.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#363

Post by tharmas »

digikata wrote: post #334
rickdeckard wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not disagreeing with you, but isn't the issue that the US stopped investing in the skills and infra which made mass-production low-skill in the first place? Instead, the offshore-destinations kept offering more and more services in the value-chain, until the entire skillset to actually create the low-skill labor processes to offshore was replaced with "let the offshore company manage".

Yes climbing the value chain was a necessity for nations like China. But in the US popularized in the 90's, was a business strategy trend that strongly discounted the value of long term capital investments - particularly for this discussion, investment in factories. They do require extra management attention and they do tie companies to strategies in longer time frames at lower margins - but they deliver long term va…

Agreed. Well articulated.

>Many US business elected to chase short term growth, and short term and higher margins and minimize long term investments.

I would like to add that this was due to the influence of Milton Friedman. He put the emphasis on shareholder returns being the most important, without considering the survival of the company itself.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#364

Post by Delphiza »

rickdeckard wrote: post #252
like_any_other wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other than that it seems to be mostly good points, especially the overall one: you cannot do this overnight. It's annoying Americans were given only two choices - offshoring is great and let's keep doing it, and, as you say, the opposite, meth-fueled let's bring back manufacturing overnight. The kind of slow and steady protection and promotion of home-grown industry that China and most of Asia so successfully used…

The weird part for me is this: While the economy was evolving, Production was offshored from US for cost-reasons, but also in part to focus on higher-skill labor in US, delegating the low-skill mass-production to China. Over time, China also developed mid/high level skills, complemented their low-skill production offering with it and now competes in new industries, new tech, etc. So...to compete with China, the count…

Moving the low-cost jobs offshore was fine until automation filled a lot of those jobs. Now the high skilled automation skills and infrastructure (production lines and robots) are also offshore. I have done my fair share of western factory tours and the number of people on the factory floor is soberingly low... they are simply not needed, as they line runs like a vast, complicated machine.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#365

Post by californical »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #184

I think most people have a very confused understanding of money(currency) and value. Workers produce value, not money . Workers get a cut of that value, which is converted to money. To get by comfortably in the US, a first world developed economy, you need to be producing a lot of value. Everything is made to accommodate high value workers. Producing t-shirts, window fans, or toilet brushes is not high value work. Th…

I somewhat agree with your point, but it’s also important to include the other side of that pricing.

If it actually costs $60 (really more like $25 for made-in-America t-shirts I’ve bought) to make a t-shirt, with environmental regulations and human costs accounted for, then isn’t that the actual cost of a t-shirt? And they were artificially cheap at $10 for imported ones due to ignoring externalities? In that case, producing these simple products is actually a bit more valuable than you suggest.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#366

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #338
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the part that is so frustrating to me, and not just with regards to tariffs. It's that I see the extremes being so laughably bad (though not necessarily equally - I'm not "both sides"-ing this), and more ludicrously bad is that I've seen positions that don't follow these extremes as being derided now as "centrism". E.g. before the administration's attack on higher education, I do believe a lot of elite univer…

> making logical arguments in this environment feels almost pointless. Unfortunately this is the culmination of social media as a controversy machine, that promotes the worst arguments. > ideological purity tests like required DEI statements Example? There's a controversy industry that cherry picks the worst examples of student-politics excess in these regards and then carefully conflates it with university policy. A…

[deleted]

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#367

Post by kjkjadksj »

XorNot wrote: post #309
kjkjadksj wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People literally do just that today in the midwest. The coastal housing imbalance is just that a housing imbalance and not reflective of a lack of buying power today. Also consider that americans back then outside of the car and home had no other large purchases. No computer, no $1k phone on a $1k/yr plan, no big tv. People weren’t even eating out or flying back then when they could afford a family vacation.

How much do you think a house costs, vs how much do you think a TV costs? And perhaps more importantly, do you have any idea what rent currently is costing? As a fraction of median income? This is an avocado toast argument.

What if I told you that you can buy a 3br turnkey house for maybe $100k all over the midwest. Now consider living at your parents for four years after highschool rent free while working literally any job full time. You’d probably be able to throw down 50% on that house at least.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#368

Post by ta1243 »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #188
asdajksah2123 wrote: post #109

America does need to bring back manufacturing. Not because a manufacturing job that pays $25/hr is somehow better than a service job that pays $25/hr. The US needs to bring back manufacturing for strategic reasons and in strategic areas. And it needs to have the capability to scale up manufacturing in response to emergencies. But also, importantly, the US doesn't need to do this by onshoring all manufacturing. Near s…

The components of a strategic manufactured product can be as simple as an injection molded switch, a LiION battery, capacitors, copper wire, etc., so the notion of bringing only "strategic items" back is as much a myth as the idea its mostly coming back to the USA. The goal here is to diversify the supply chain globally so its not concentrated in China. Internally this is sold as bringing MFG back to the USA (will ha…

So putting tarrifs on Mexico, Canada, Europe helps diversify?

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#369

Post by seanhunter »

Clubber wrote: post #240
seanhunter wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of your list I've been to France, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France (you seem to have it twice for some reason), Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. They all most definitely did not stop existing. Also I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing.

>I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about when you say the United Kingdom came really close to not existing. Battle of Britain, Battle of France? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France >They all most definitely did not stop existing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-occupied_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_territories_acquired_b... Yo…

I did. Austria, Belgium, France etc all existed during WW2. They were occupied, but they existed. Also lots of countries you listed definitely don't meet any sort of reasonable definition of "hegemon".

To pick another example, Singapore was a crown colony before the war, then they were occupied by Japan during WW2, then they were a single nation with what is now Malaysia, then in the 1960s they two countries became independent from each other. They didn't under any reasonable reading of the situation cease to exist and they also have never been a hegemon of any kind.

Re: America underestimates the difficulty of bringing manufacturing back

#370

Post by wormlord »

nonethewiser wrote: post #359
wormlord wrote: post #150

I think the collapse of the American Empire is no more preventible than the collapse of the British, Spanish, or Roman empires. The issues with the US being the reserve currency has been known for a while now (and was even predicted by Keynes before the Bretton-Woods summit): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma Any discussion of "bringing back manufacturing" that doesn't mention government spending or socia…

America doesnt really have an empire. What is America's Hong Kong, India, etc?

Dude come on

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_imperialism#Strategy

Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, are locations that are directly under US control. The entire western hemisphere is within our sphere of control, and a huge chunk of the planet was either directly aligned with us (EU, AUS/UK) or was compliant for fear of regime change.

The country itself was founded on the destruction of dozens of civilizations, a victory so total you don't even consider it as part of US imperial conquest. I can't believe I even have to explain this to people on here my God.

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